Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

8350 Just a few days previously, before start- ing from the Black Hills country, he had met a wandering waddie from the Powder River section who had told him that all the boys were well at the Wagon Wheel. His father had been apparently in the best of health. Of course, men could be in the best of health, and then have their lives snuffed out in a gun-fight, but it wouldn’t be likely with old J. S. No, sir! Blue knew that his father could handle a six-gun with any man, young or old, in the Powder River country. It was he who had taught Blue Steel to ride and shoot. And, furthermore, the fire was going out of his father’s system these days. He knew that his father had become more peaceable than formerly. Could it be that something was wrong with his uncle, John Ballou? Uncle John had not been in the best of health for years. It might be Uncle John. He rather leaned to this opinion. And yet, as the train tore through the night, Blue Steel tried to laugh away his fears and worries. Maybe the Old Man was taking to sending telegrams these days since his son was seldom in a community Jong enough to receive mail. Oh, well, he’d make Poco well before noon the next morning, with this lift that Sims Halliday had arranged for him. At the end of his train journey he would ride hard, maybe make the Wagon Wheel by nine or ten o’clock. And then, perhaps, and the wish was father to the thought, he would probably find that there was nothing to worry about after all. The express messenger, at first sullen at the irregularity of carrying such an unusual shipment as a man and his horse, found himself strangely liking this lithe young buckaroo as the train speeded on. He was almost sorry to lose him as a companion when the train made its stop at Pampas at three in the morning, and this likable young puncher left the train to make the rest of the journey by horseback. From Pampas, down along the winding trail beside the Powder River, rode Blue Steel under a sky powdered with stars. He gave Pancho his head and the miles seemed ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. fairly to skim beneath the hoofs of the blue- black stallion, a beautiful animal of over twelve hundred pounds weight, with sloping withers and long pasterns, high-held head, and arched neck, his tail a plume of black silk. Pancho, the blue-black stallion of Blue Steel, had come in for much comment at cowboy gatherings, where he always dom- inated the hitch-rail with their usual cluster of short-necked, close-coupled cow- ponies. This young buckaroo had been riding him for the past two ‘years now, after having started to conquer him as an outlaw on the plains of Montana, Blue Steel smiled as he recalled the day that Pancho had first been singled out of the remuda to feel the initial tug of the hackamore rope. What a spirited rebel Pancho had been then! It had seemed that the heart of the midnight thoroughbred with the four white stockings never could be tamed, or that he might have to break - his heart and take the spirit out of him 7 the process. ; He recalled scenes among the Indians when they were taming an outlaw in this way by hobbling him and abusing him until the horse was ready to quit and acknowledge servility. Kind treatment, however, had eventually made a tractable equine citizen of the fiery- eyed Pancho without breaking his spirit, and as soon as he had learned to behave under the saddle, tidbits commenced to come forth from the pockets of the young broncho-twister who was his master. Now, after nearly two years, there was a posi- tively human understanding between horse and rider. They were an unusual pair, with a strange affinity for each other. Almost were they the body and head of a Centaur. Pancho could gallop great distances at breakneck speed and, except for a coating of lather, still look the same tireless, satiny- coated king of horses, just as Blue Steel, despite gun-fights, hard riding, and divers adversities, was never discovered unshaven or dusty. Horse and rider were always as neat as a pair of well-fed cats, whether at rodeo comicbooks con